Foreign travellers not deterred by Iranophobia

Thursday, December 26, 2019

It was mentioned by Jahangiri (an official) in a report that Americans assumed that sanctions would prevent foreign tourists from travelling to their country, the statistics revealed that the number of international tarvellers has gone up by 30 percent since 1397 when the sanctions were reimposed.

The official went on saying that seven million foreign travellers arrived in the country since the start of the year which showed an annual 30 percent growth.

In November the foreign travellers were not deterred by Iranophobia said the Deputy tourism minister Vali Teymouri.

He explained that as an expert working in the field of tourism for the last twenty years, believing that the main challenge for their travel industry is that Iran in internationally  unknown. An Iranophobia project has been added over the past few years by the naysayers.

The Trump administration reinstated sanctions on Iran, mainly the ones that had been lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal, in order to batter Iran’s economy in the year 2017.

Anti-Iran propaganda campaigns have decreased along with the sanctions have decreased the Western tourists but Iran was able to manage the blow by attracting the more from the neighbouring states.

Iran even attempted to ease travelling from Iraq, China, the Republic of Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Turkey, Pakistan and several other countries who visited Iran  for medical, pilgrimage and cultural heritage experience.

During the first seven months of the past Iranian calendar year some two million Iraqi national visited Iran making the largest source of inbound passengers.

In a unilateral measure Iran expected to have a bigger share of Chinese tourism and it recently approved to waive the visa requirement for the Chinese passport holders.

According to the World Travel & Tourism Council’s latest report  Iraq was the main source of tourism for Iran in 2018, as Iraqis constituted 24% of all inbound visitors. Azerbaijan (17%), Turkey (8%), Pakistan (4%) and Bahrain (2%) were the major source markets and the remaining 46% came from the rest of the world.

Iran embraces hundreds of historical sites such as bazaars, museums, mosques, bridges, bathhouses, madrasas, mausoleums, churches, towers, and mansions, of which 22 being inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list.

The country aims to increase the number of tourist arrivals from 4.8 million in 2014 to 20 million in 2025 under the 2025 Tourism Vision Plan.

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